"But, Commandant, you cannot possibly maintain that I am not Jérôme Fandor, journalist!"
The interview between Commandant Dumoulin and Fandor had already lasted an hour. It was unlike that which had taken place six days before, when Dumoulin had dealt summarily with the Fandor-Vinson case. Since then Fandor had occupied cell 27, and had had no communication with the outside world. Fandor had raged furiously against things in general, against Dumoulin in particular, and against himself most of all. He acknowledged that Juve had done his utmost to extricate him from the tangled web he had involved himself in as Fandor-Vinson.
Each day brought him one distraction which he would willingly have foregone: he passed long exhausting hours in Commandant Dumoulin's office. He found the commandant detestable. Dumoulin was hot-blooded, noisy, unmethodical, always in a state of fuss and fume! He would begin his interrogations calmly, would weigh his words, would be logical, but little by little, his real nature—a tempestuous one—would get the upper hand.
For the twentieth time Fandor had insisted on his identity, and Dumoulin, tapping the case papers with an agitated hand, had replied:
"I recognise that you are Jérôme Fandor, exercising the profession of a journalist—since it seems journalism is a profession! But that is not the question; the problem I have to elucidate! I have to ascertain when, and at what exact moment, one Jérôme Fandor took the personality of Corporal Vinson!"...
"I have already told you, Commandant!... Pleaseread my deposition of the day before yesterday. I will recapitulate:
"Sunday, November 13th, at five o'clock in the evening, at my domicile, rue Richer, I received the visit of a soldier whom I did not know. He stated that he was called Corporal Vinson, and informed me that he had become part and parcel of the spy system; that he regretted it, and, not being able to extricate himself, he was going to commit suicide.... Desiring to give this unfortunate a chance of rehabilitating himself, desiring also to come to close quarters with this gang of spies, I decided to assume his personality, and take advantage of his entrance into a regiment where he was not known, and to go there in his place. It was in these conditions that I left eight days after, on Sunday, November 20th, for Verdun."
"You maintain that you did not assume the personality of Vinson before that date?"
"I do maintain that, Commandant."
"But that is the pivot of the whole business, and the important point yet to be proved!"
"That is not difficult," declared Fandor: "I have alibis who will support my statement."
The commandant raised his arms to heaven.
"Alibis! Alibis!... What do they prove, after all?"
"The truth, Commandant.... When I am in Paris it is evident I am not in Châlons or Verdun."
Dumoulin was evidently trying to find an argument to meet the accused's logic.
"Peuh!" declared he: "With fellows like you, who are perpetually disguising themselves, changing their faces as I change my collars, one never knows."... Suddenly Dumoulin's face lighted up.
"Tuesday, November 29th, you were in the shoes of Vinson—is that so?"
"Yes, Commandant."
"Very well. This same Tuesday, November 29th, you were at the Elysée ball as Jérôme Fandor! So you see!"
Dumoulin was triumphant.
"I had twenty-four hours' leave, Commandant—quite regular!" protested Fandor.
"Ah!" growled the commandant, glancing knowingly at Lieutenant Servin, who with impassive countenance was listening to this discussion: "Don't talk to me about leave!... Heaven alone knows how easily you spies succeed in obtaining leave!"
Fandor was about to protest vehemently against being numbered with the spies, when the commandant started another subject.
"Added to this, there is something very serious in your case."
"Good Heavens! What now?" ejaculated Fandor.
Dumoulin looked mysterious.
"We will speak of it later on.... The next step is to confront you with certain witnesses: Lieutenant Servin, see if the witnesses are there!"
Fandor himself had demanded this confrontation. He did not deny having assumed the personality of Corporal Vinson, dating from the day when the corporal entered officially on his duties as a unit of the 257th of the line, in garrison at Verdun. But the enquiry wished to establish that, anterior to this, Fandor had already taken the place of the real Vinson: the military authorities seemed to attach immense importance to this point. Fandor had then decided that the simplest way was to be brought face to face with soldiers who had known Vinson at Châlons: they would state that the Vinson presented to them in the person of Fandor was not the Vinson they had known.
Thereupon Dumoulin had sent for two men who, as orderlies at Châlons, had lived side by side with Vinson.
There was a momentous silence while Lieutenant Servin went to the end of the corridor and signed to the two waiting witnesses to come forward. The two men entered the commandant's office, facing Dumoulin in true military style.
Dumoulin, reading out the names of the two witnesses from a paper, started his interrogation with a haughty air.
"Hiloire?"
"Present, Commandant."
"What is your name?"
The soldier opened his eyes wide, and thinking he had to give his Christian name, stammered:
"Justinien!"
"What?" growled the commandant: "You are not called Hiloire?"
The bewildered man attempted some confused explanations, from which it could be gathered that Hiloire was his surname and Justinien his baptismal name!
"Good!" declared the commandant, who proceeded to question the second soldier as to his identity! When it was made clear that he was one Tarbottin, baptismal name Niccodème, the commandant questioned them together.
"You are soldiers of the second class in the 213th of the line, and fulfil the functions of staff orderlies?"
"Yes, Commandant."
"You know Corporal Vinson?"
"Yes, Commandant."
Dumoulin pointed to Fandor.
"Is he Corporal Vinson?"
"Yes, Commandant," repeated the two soldiers.
Lieutenant Servin intervened. He pointed out to his chief that the witnesses had replied in the affirmative without turning to look at the supposed corporal.
The commandant cried angrily:
"What kind of imbeciles are you? Before saying that you recognise a person you must begin by looking at that person! Look at the corporal!"
The two soldiers obeyed: they turned with precision and stared at Fandor.
"Is that man Corporal Vinson?"
"Yes, Commandant."
"You are sure of that?"
"No, Commandant."
Despite the miserable position he found himself in, Fandor could not help smiling at the bewilderment of the two soldiers: it was evident they could be made to say anything.
The commandant was growing more and more exasperated.
"What's that!" he shouted: "I will give you eight days in the cells if you continue to play the fool like this!... Try to understand what you are doing! Do you even know why you are here?"
After consulting each other with a look as to who should answer, Tarbottin explained:
"It is the sergeant who told us that we were being sent to Paris to recognise Corporal Vinson—well, then?"
"Well," continued Hiloire: "we recognised him!"
Then, speaking together, with an air of proud satisfaction:
"Yes, we got our orders. We have carried them out!"
The commandant was scarlet. With a violent blow of his fist he sent three sets of case papers flying to the ground. He turned to Lieutenant Servin.
"I fail to understand why the staff captain has expressly sent us the biggest fools he could lay hands on.... What the deuce can you get out of such a pair?... Has the counter verification been carried out? Have they been shown the body of the real Corporal Vinson?"
Lieutenant Servin replied that this had been done.
"And what did they declare?"
"Nothing definite.... I may say they were very much moved at the sight of the corpse—also, that it is decomposing rapidly."
Here Fandor broke in:
"Commandant, I am extremely surprised that you thought it necessary to summon only two soldiers! It is at least strange!... I have the right to expect that in the conduct of the enquiry connected with the action you wish to bring against me you should proceed more seriously than you are doing at present.... A magistrate should be impartial!"...
The commandant had risen. He bent towards Fandor across his writing-table. Fandor also had risen—Dumoulin's air was threatening: he was furious.
"What do you mean by that?" he shouted.
"I mean to say," burst out Fandor, "that for the last forty-eight hours you have given proofs of a revolting partiality—against me!"
For a minute Dumoulin drew himself up, crimson, choking: he was an embodied protest. Suddenly he dropped the official and became the fellow-citizen. He cried:
"But I am an honest man!"
Dumoulin was a worthy official of the old school. Whatever his temperamental drawbacks, he undoubtedly aimed at a conscientious conduct of any case he had in charge. Fandor had made an exceedingly bad impression on him. He had been scandalised that a civilian, a mere journalist, had dared to treat the army with contempt, by so lightly taking the place of a real soldier. Unquestionably there were grave presumptions of Fandor's guilt: that was Dumoulin's opinion.
Considering the importance of the affair, the terrible consequences which might ensue for the accused were the case to go against him, it was imperative that the enquiry should be thorough down to the minutest detail.... The commandant well knew the weak points in his procedure. There was this confrontation, with the absurd testimonies of the two soldiers: it had proved a ridiculous fiasco. Also, he would have great difficulty in showing conclusively that Fandor had been a certain time at Châlons under Vinson's uniform.
Dumoulin, mastering his emotion, resumed his official tone.
"Fandor!"...
He stopped short, glared indignantly at the two soldiers planted in the middle of the room.
"What are you two up to now?" he cried.
The ridiculous pair saluted, but did not reply.
"Lieutenant, remove those men! We do not want any more of them here! Take them out of my sight!" growled Dumoulin.
The commandant felt he must have a breath of fresh air, collect his thoughts, and calm down before resuming conduct of the case.
"We shall continue this interrogation in ten minutes' time," he announced and left the room.
The short interval had done its work. The commandant had calmed down, Fandor had regained his self-possession. No longer was it an irascible officer facing an inimical accused: two men, fellow-citizens, were prepared to argue and talk together.... The formal interrogation recommenced.
"Fandor," began the commandant in an amiable tone, "you have evidently been drawn on by unforeseen events to commit irregularities. Name your accomplices!"...
Fandor replied in a similar tone.
"No, Commandant, I have not been drawn into the spy circle really, nor have I practised spying.... I considered it right to assume the personality of Corporal Vinson solely to obtain information regarding the relations this unfortunate maintained, compulsorily and quite against his better judgment, with the agents of a foreign power. When I had obtained the facts I sought, my intention was to leave the law to deal with them."
"In other words," said Dumoulin: "you aimed at playing the counter-spy!"
"If you like to put it so!"
The commandant smiled ironically.
"They always say that!... In the course of my career, Monsieur Fandor, I have had to examine three or four spy cases: well, the defence of the guilty man is always the same—you have taken up an identical position: I sell secret documents in exchange for more important ones!... This system of defence will not hold water!"
"I cannot take up any other position!" declared Fandor.
"The Council will take that at its proper value," announced the commandant.
Fandor was asking himself how he was going to get out of a position that was growing worse, and that in a very curious way!
The commandant's next question struck a shrewd blow at the accused.
"Fandor—How about those accomplices you refuse to name?... Have they not remunerated you for your pains?"
"What do you mean to imply by that?" demanded Fandor.
"Have they not given you money?"
"No!"
"Think carefully, and be frank!"
Fandor ransacked his memory.... Ah!... What of that interview in the printing works of the Noret brothers? Would it be best in accordance with his aims to deny it? It went against the grain of his naturally frank nature to tell such a lie.... Nevertheless he had vowed to himself a well-considered vow that he would not reveal what he had learned: it would be a grave mistake at present.
He lowered his head as he persisted in his declaration:
"No, Commandant! I have not received money from the spies."
The commandant called to the reporter:
"Make a special note of that: underline it with red pencil. This is a most important statement!"
The commandant turned over some papers in his drawer, drew out a sealed envelope, opened it, extracted another envelope.
Fandor asked himself, with a thrill of foreboding, what this new move of the commandant's meant.
From a third envelope, Dumoulin took out several bank-notes, yellowed and crumpled. He held them up for Fandor to see.
"Here are three fifty franc bank-notes—new ones!... They bear the following numbers: A 4998; O 4350; U 5108. They were found, with others, concealed in your baggage at the Saint-Benoit barracks at Verdun. Do you recognise these notes as having been in your possession?"
"How do you think I can know that?" countered Fandor. "One bank-note is not distinguishable from another!"
"Yes they are: by the numbering," asserted the commandant.... "I willingly admit that it is not usual to write down for reference the number of every bank-note which passes through one's hands!... We have a better way of demonstrating that the notes I have in my hand were in your possession."
"What exactly is he going to spring upon me now?" Fandor asked himself.
There was an impressive pause.
"These notes," declared Dumoulin, "have been carefully examined by the anthropometric service. It has been demonstrated that they bear distinct traces of your finger-marks.... I hope, Monsieur Fandor, that you do not contest the exactitude of the Bertillion method?"
"No," replied Fandor simply. "I accept the evidence of the anthropometric method."
The commandant looked more and more satisfied.
"You acknowledge then, that these notes were in your possession?"
"Yes, I do."
The commandant again addressed the reporter:
"Note that important confession! Underline it with red pencil!"
Dumoulin fired a point-blank question at Fandor.
"Did you know Captain Brocq?"
"No."
"You did know him," insisted the commandant.
"No," repeated Fandor. He questioned in his turn:
"Why?"
"Because."... The commandant hesitated, then continued:
"You are not ignorant of the fact that an important document was stolen from the domicile of this mysteriously murdered man?"
"I know it," admitted Fandor.
"That is not all," continued Dumoulin: "A certain amount of money was also stolen from this unfortunate officer. Now, Brocq was in the habit of putting down in his pocket-book the exact sums he possessed and—mark this well—also entering the numbers of his bank-notes!... Now, bank-notes have disappeared from his cash drawer. The missing notes bear the numbers: A 4998; O 4350; U 5108; the very notes found in your pocket-book!"
There ensued a dreadful silence. Fandor was thunderstruck.... Everything seemed in league against him.... Oh, he was caught like a mouse in a trap!... These must be the notes that the red-bearded man—probably one of the Noret brothers—had slipped into his hand!... Evidently, from the time of his leaving Paris in Corporal Vinson's uniform, the traitorous gang he meant to expose had known him for what he was! Without suspecting it, he had been the hunted instead of the hunter: and this chaser of damaged goods and trumpery wares had been caught in his trap like a fool!... These unscrupulous wretches had hatched an abominable plot against him!... Fandor felt that each instant saw him deeper in the toils! His whole being was invaded by a terrible anxiety, an immense fear. Who could be so powerful, so subtle, so formidable as to have made a fool of him in such a fashion, to have led him into such traps that even Juve himself could do nothing to save him?
One being, and one only, was capable of such a diabolically clever performance; and Fandor, who would not believe it some weeks before, when discussing the question with Juve, had now to accept his hypothesis as a certainty: his acts caused his unseen personality to hit you in the eyes! Only one person could pull the strings with such a demon hand!... Yes, Fandor could no longer doubt that his desperate plight was due to the terrific, odious, elusive Fantômas!
Our journalist was now in the lowest depths. He attempted to keep calm and cool, but he had lost grip of himself.... He stammered, he mumbled confusedly, justifications, excuses, charging the Noret brothers with having given him those terrible bank-notes.
Dumoulin, on his side, was convinced that his examination had made an immense step in the right direction. He considered that the interrogation might well end with a last word, a last sentence. He turned to thewretched, over-strained Fandor, and in tones of the utmost solemnity administered his finishing stroke.
"Jérôme Fandor, not only are you accused of the crimes of treason and spying, but, taking into account the formal avowals you have just made, I, here and now, declare you guilty of the assassination of Captain Brocq, of the theft of his documents, and of his money!"
The night was dark and stormy. On the Sceaux road a gipsy was braving the tempest, making difficult headway in the teeth of a gale which flapped her long cloak with impeding force, soaked her to the skin, dashed masses of water in her face, plastered streaming locks to her forehead, taking her breath with its suffocating rush. Shielding her mouth with her hand, the gipsy pressed steadily forward.
A church struck eleven slow strokes, borne on the wind. Lashed by the tempest, the gipsy pressed on, muttering as she moved:
"Vagualame told me that he would be at the first milestone beyond the aviation sheds.... I must get there! I will get there!"
It was Bobinette, struggling on in blind obedience to him whom she considered her master, towards the strange meeting-place fixed by the bandit five days ago.
Under her looks of Parisian delicacy, Bobinette had a valiant spirit, a high-strung temperament and a will of steel.... Bobinette wished to reach the appointed trysting-place: she would reach it.
But gipsy Bobinette had her fears. She was painfully impressed by the obscurity of the night—sinister, menacing. From the marshy fields flanking her to right and left unaccustomed sounds, weird noises reached her straining ears through the gusty darkness.
Then what did her master want with her here, and at such an hour?
Never had Bobinette confessed to herself that Vagualame's real identity was unknown to her. What dark personality was hid behind that familiar figure? She asked herself that now, with shuddering apprehension.She had remarked certain coincidences, noted certain details: she divined that this enigmatic accordion player might well be none other than—Fantômas.
Fantômas! That name was it not a frightful symbol of all the crimes, all the atrocities, the monstrous synthesis of unpunished evil?
In her tormented brain those three syllables of sinister intent were sounding like a funeral knell.... At thought of Fantômas and Vagualame co-mingled, Bobinette's terror-filled heart fainted within her. Yet, prey to haunting terrors as she was, Bobinette pressed unfalteringly forward towards what Fate held for her.
One reassuring thought came to hearten her. At every step she took the sequins of her gipsy circlet moved and shook and tinkled on her forehead. They reminded her of the words chanted by the old second-hand dealer when he sold her the string of sequins, words from the celebrated song of the Andalusian gipsies.:
"The coral shines on my skin so brown—The pin of gold in my chignon:I go in search of my fortune." ...
"The coral shines on my skin so brown—The pin of gold in my chignon:I go in search of my fortune." ...
Was she truly hastening towards good fortune through this night of wind and rain?... Why not? Bobinette felt comforted. She said to herself that since Vagualame had summoned her to meet him in gipsy costume, it must be because he intended to help her to escape: otherwise why had he foreseen the necessity for such a disguise?
To make sure of finding the rendezvous, she had taken a reconnoitering journey along the Sceaux road the night before.... She knew now she was close to the famous milestone.
Bobinette jumped as though she would leap out of her skin!
On the left side of the road tall trees, stripped of their leaves, stood swaying like skeletons in the wind. Just there her eyes had seen something dark, a black patch, blacker than the surrounding night.
What was it?
A strange sound issued from the darkness, a low, dull,deep, complaining sound breathed from some infernal throat! Was it a cry, a growl, a snarl?... She halted, shivering with fright, her ears humming, her heart contracted in the grip of an indescribable terror, doubting her senses, doubting the reality of the sound she had heard.
Bobinette stood motionless.
The wind whistling through the branches conveyed another sound to her senses. She heard a mocking voice, harsh, imperious, a menacing voice, a voice whose orders she had obeyed many a time and oft, a voice she had never heard without secret terror, the voice of her master—Vagualame!
"Go forward, you fool! Why do you halt?"
As though galvanised, Bobinette with a supreme effort of will obeyed. A few seconds and she was by the side of Vagualame, who had come to meet her.
"Did you hear?" she gasped.
"I heard the bellowing of the wind," laughed Vagualame: "I heard the sound of sleety rain, I heard the noise of trees writhing and creaking in the wind—nothing more!"
"Someone or something cried out!"
"Who could?... We are alone here!... Bobinette you are alone here with me!"
There was a pause. Vagualame's voice was once more mocking.
"Am I to think you are afraid?"
"No, Vagualame, I am not afraid; but."...
"But you are trembling like a leaf!" cried Vagualame, with a burst of laughter which sounded strangely false. He seized Bobinette in an iron grip and forced her forward.
"Come! Come under shelter!" They moved towards the black blot Bobinette had not yet identified. Almost directly they were leaning against a gipsy van drawn up at the side of the road.
"Your future domicile," said Vagualame, showing the van to the bewildered Bobinette. "But this is not the time to install yourself—there are things to be said first—between you and me, Bobinette!"
The bandit was enveloped from head to foot in a dark cloak. All Bobinette could see of him was his profile: his features were concealed by a soft felt hat with turned-down brim, which showed at intervals against the sky when the lightning flashed and flickered.
The girl shivered: her master's last words were full of some dark menace.
"What do you want to say?" she murmured.
Vagualame took a few steps forward, then returned to where the girl was leaning against the van.
"Listen to me, Bobinette, listen, for, by Heaven, the words I am about to utter are the last you will ever hear."
Before Bobinette could interrupt, Vagualame continued:
"Tell me, do you know of anything more wicked, more contemptible, more vile, more shameful than treachery, than betrayal, than a trap set, a snare laid to catch one who has always been your friend, your defender?... Tell me, Bobinette, who is more hateful than the Judas who sells you with a kiss?... Tell me, Bobinette, who is less worthy of pity than the cowardly criminal who betrays his accomplice?... Than the bandit who delivers up his chief for money, perhaps for less than money—because of fear—who betrays his master to save his own skin?"...
Bobinette did not seem to understand one word of this apostrophe. She kept silence, terrified, crushed, in front of the awful abyss she divined.
Vagualame seized her by the shoulders and shook her brutally, thrusting her fiercely against the side of the van.
"Speak! Reply, Bobinette! I command you!"
"I do not understand you! I am afraid!"
A shout of ferocious laughter burst from Vagualame.
"You do not understand me! You are afraid?... Ah! If you are afraid it is because you understand well enough!... Bobinette! You know well enough what I have to reproach you with!... What I have to force you to expiate!"...
A hoarse cry escaped the girl's parched lips:
"You are mad, mad, Vagualame!... Pity!... Pity!"
In a voice so hard, so biting, that the words seemed arrows piercing her quivering flesh, the bandit addressed his victim:
"Bobinette, you deceive yourself strangely! I am not of those to whom one cries for pity!... I know not the word, nor such weakness. I have never had it, and never shall have it for any living soul."
The bandit paused. Then, in a tone of rising anger, he continued:
"And you think me mad? But what sort of woman are you, Bobinette, to try and deceive me? What madness is yours to think, to imagine you can dupe me?... To confess that with such words and speeches as your feminine mind can think of you are going to ensnare me, make me alter my decision, turn me from my vengeance—that you should decide how I shall act—I?... I?... Vagualame?"
The bandit pronounced "I?" with such an accent of authority, with such terrific pride, that Bobinette, with a sound as though the death rattle were in her throat, cried:
"Vagualame! Who are you? Tell me!... Tell me!"...
"You ask me who I am?... You wish to know?... It be according to your wish!... Who am I?... Look!"...
Slowly, with a movement firm and dignified, Vagualame unfolded the long cloak which enveloped him. He tore off his hat and flung it at his feet. With arms crossed he apostrophied Bobinette:
"Dare to utter my name! Dare to name me!"
Before Bobinette's distracted eyes a terrifying outline showed itself.... The beggar of a moment ago, his cloak removed, his hat thrown to the ground, appeared no more a bent old man: he stood there, upright, young, vigorous, superbly muscular. He was sheathed from head to foot in a tight-fitting garment, black as Erebus!
Bobinette could not see his face, a black hood covered it: two gleaming eyes alone were visible, eyes that to the distraught girl seemed lit by fires from hell!
This vision, the vision of this man without a face, resembling no other man, this apparition with nameless mask, its body like some statue cut from solid darkness, was yet so definite in its mystery that Bobinette, uttering the indescribable cry of some inhuman thing, articulated:
"Fantômas!... You are Fantômas!"
The bandit spoke:
"I am Fantômas!... I am he for whom the entire world is searching, whom none has ever seen, whom none can recognise!... I am Crime incarnated!... I am Night!... No human sees my face, because Crime and Night are featureless!... I am illimitable Power!... I am he who mocks at all the powers, at all the efforts, at all the forces!... I am master of all, of everything; of all times and seasons.... I am Death!... Bobinette, thou hast said it—I am Fantômas."
His wretched listener could not breathe. She felt death in her veins: she felt the earth dissolving into dust.... She sank on her knees.
"Pity, master! Pity!... Fantômas, have pity!"...
"You join those words together!... Fantômas and Pity!"... A furious anger seized the bandit. "Fantômas knows not what mercy is, I tell you!... Fantômas ordains that whoso resist him shall perish—shall disappear!"
"But, Master!... What have I done?... Master!... Fantômas, what have I done?"
Slowly the bandit enveloped himself once more in his cloak.... Bobinette was on her knees, as one nailed to the earth!... Fantômas had hypnotised her into immobility, as the bird is hypnotised by the cat watching its prey. He played with her. He could seize and master her at his pleasure.
In a voice cold and hard as the nether millstone, he denounced his victim:
"Bobinette, you aimed at my betrayal!... You pointed out the Nihilist's haunt to Juve, to Fandor, to my most personal enemies, to those who would hound me to the guillotine!"
"I never did!... I did not do it!... I swear it!" shrieked the maddened girl.
Fantômas, convinced that Bobinette, and she alone, was the traitor here....
"You are to die; but not by my hand!... The hand of Fantômas does not deal death to those who once served him, to the traitorous wretches once in his employ!... But you shall die, Bobinette! I deliver you to death!"...
Fantômas laughed. He laughed because the body of this woman, huddled in the mud, crushed to the earth, was a pleasing thing, because Fantômas was happy when he made human creatures suffer, when he tortured, when he wrought sweet vengeance....
Far away sounded the church bells.... The carillon was ringing.... Church bells were chiming through the night. To Bobinette, the abject creature grovelling in the mire of the roadway, the bells sounded vaguely serene, far, far away....
She seemed to be floating in some indefinable element, floating like thistledown on an irresistible breeze.... Suddenly she had the sensation that she was sinking, falling, that she was rolling down, down, into the depths of a bottomless abyss....
When she opened her eyes, tried to move, sat up, she knew she was not dreaming.... She knew she had lost consciousness and was coming back to life.... She asked herself could she possibly be alive? Fantômas had threatened her with death, and yet she lived.... Where was she?... Bobinette felt so weak and giddy that she remained in a sitting posture.... What exactly had happened?... Ah!—yes!—when Fantômas had announced she was to die, she had fallen down on the road: her skirt was still wet and muddy, her testing fingers told her that! She was cold! What had happened since?... Bobinette heard the wind blowing rain as still falling, but she noticed none fell on her face.
"Where am I?" she asked aloud. Clear came the mental answer:
"Fantômas has shut me up in this van! I am imprisoned in this van!"... She felt about her with her fingers. She was certainly sitting on rough boards.... She knelt, she stretched out her arms: she touched roughboards.... Yes, this was the van she was in!... Was Fantômas quite near? He might appear again! She was not saved!... But in Bobinette who, terrified at being confronted with Fantômas self-confessed, had tasted the bitterness of death, a powerful reaction had set in: she was becoming mistress of herself once more.
Fantômas had said to her: "Thou shalt die!" She now decided that she would live, would save herself!... She must escape!
"If Fantômas were there I should hear him," she thought. "He must have gone.... I must at all costs escape from this prison before he returns."
Bobinette got up.... The van must have a door, a window. She would force her way out somehow. She was strong, and she was fighting for her life!... She would make a tour of the van!... She felt her way by fingering the wooden side of her prison.... The van must be empty, she thought, for she had not encountered any furniture—when, suddenly, she felt her hand come into contact with something soft and warm, which moved. What was it?...
Bobinette jumped back.... She must be mad to imagine!... She waited a few moments—she stepped forward—anew her fingers touched something.... She could not say what!... But while she tried to define the strange object her fingers touched, she felt the unknown thing was drawing back—was avoiding her caress!...
The van was now filled with a formidable growling. She recognised it as a repetition of the sound she had heard when nearing her sinister rendezvous.
Bobinette understood!... She knew!... It was a bear!... It had been asleep. She had waked it!
Fantômas had shut her in with a bear: she was to be devoured alive!
Bobinette softly withdrew to the other side of the van. She waited. No growling sound reached her. The bear must have gone to sleep again. She could hear its heavy breathing. As the air became exhausted in the confined space the noisome odour of the beast caught her by the throat.... What was she to do? Bobinette asked herselfthis again and again as the slow and dreadful hours of that night wore on.
"The bear sleeps," she said to herself; "but he will wake in the morning hungry: he will hurl himself on me and I shall be done for!"
After interminable hours of waiting, of aching immobility, of dull agony of mind, the interior of the van was becoming slowly visible.... She had listened to the lessening fury of the wind: the rain had ceased. The wan light of early day came through the cracks in the planking. Bobinette could see the bear waking up: it turned, yawned: suddenly it fixed its eyes on her and crouched.
What should she do? What could she do?
Bobinette had once read that the human eye could frighten a wild beast into submission: she forced herself to stare at the animal with concentrated energy. Alas! she was too frightened herself to terrify a ferocious animal into harmless submission!
The bear licked itself. As though sure of its prey, which he would presently fall upon and rend, he took his time and proceeded to make his toilette.
It was grotesquely tragic, the leisurely tranquillity of this beast face to face with this girl who could count the seconds of life remaining to her.
Now and again Bobinette could hear the rapid passings of motor-cars on the high road outside, speeding to Paris or Versailles, passing the van abandoned, left derelict by the wayside. Far, indeed, were these passers from suspecting the terrible drama of which it was the theatre.
Call out?
That were madness! Her cries might pass unheeded. Why should she suppose the drivers of these cars racing on their appointed way would stop, locate the cry, and succour her? No, it would but excite the anger of the bear, rouse it to action, thus hasten her own dreadful end!...
A man was walking on the Sceaux road—walking fast. He wore the clothes of a working man. He was leading asorry nag.... The man halted and let the nag go free. A sound had caught his ear—a growling sound.
He listened intently.
"Did I imagine it?" he murmured.
Again that growling, punctuated by a woman's sharp scream. The man was off at racing speed towards the van, which was but a hundred yards away.
"Great Heaven! Shall I arrive too late?" ejaculated the man.
Reaching it, breathless, he glued his ear to the door. The van shook with the movement and growling of some beast of prey about to spring.
The man drew back, rushed forward, hurled himself against the door and drove it inwards.
A shot broke the silence of the morning.
The man rolled over the body of the bear, shot dead through the heart. The man freed himself; escaped the convulsive movement of its limbs, and crawled towards a crumpled heap huddled in a corner of this tragic stage. Bobinette's poor face, exposed to view, was slashed and torn: it bore the dreadful claw-marks of the bear.
The man placed his hand on her heart.
"She lives!" he said softly.
Supporting her with infinite gentleness, the man addressed her in a voice trembling with emotion:
"Do not be afraid, Bobinette! You are saved! It is Juve who is telling you so! It is Juve!"
Isolated in the cell which had served him as dwelling-place for the past fortnight, Jérôme Fandor had had his ups and downs, hours of deepest depression, hours of violent exasperation when he suffered an intolerable martyrdom between his four walls—suffered morally and physically.
Yet his imprisonment had been rendered as tolerable as possible. He could have his meals brought in from outside and obtain from the library such books as there were.
How he longed for a talk with Juve; but that detective was rigorously excluded from the prison. Juve was to be a witness at the trial.
As Fandor was to conduct his own case there were no consultations with his counsel to relieve the monotony of the days; nor were newspapers allowed him. He had no friends or relatives to visit and console him or divert him.
In his sleepless hours Fandor's thoughts would revert to his past, to the frightful drama of his boyhood, to the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune, when he, a youth of eighteen, had been suspected, had even been accused of committing this murder, the accuser being his own father![8]
[8]SeeFantômas: vol. i, Fantômas Series.
[8]SeeFantômas: vol. i, Fantômas Series.
He remembered that, commencing the very day after the discovery of the crime, his existence had been that of a pariah flying from the police, from those who knew him; remembered how he had assumed disguise after disguise, denied by his father, ignored by his mother, an unfortunate woman who had lost her reason and was shut up in a lunatic asylum.
The only gleam of happiness which had come to illumine the dreary darkness of his youth resolved itself into a memory picture of a pale dawn when the lad, Charles Rambert, leaving a wine-shop, had been caught by Juve, who, believing in his innocence, had taken him under his protection, had given him the name of Jérôme Fandor, and helped him to start a new life.[9]